Four wheels

No. I am not cheap. But seven grand is a lot of money. Or so I thought.

Rewind to November 3rd, 2008. I pass the driving test as if it was child’s play and victoriously claim my New Jersey driver’s license. The day passes gleefully, with the lingering elation that comes from winning a battle. I bask in the glory as I continue to receive congratulations for the feat. The celebration however is short lived. By any stretch of imagination, identification at cigarette stores is about the only use I can put the license to. Unless I have a car.

Now, I am the kind of guy who has a very powerful imagination; the kind of guy who lives out an entire alternate life in one little corner of the brain. It could be anything from a fantastic body to exceptional genius rivaled only by Einstein. When the little corner comes to life, you could be sitting in a public trash can, eating Tiramisu in one of New York’s finest Italian restaurants, and you wouldn’t know the difference. It fills up with amazing speed and starts to spill over. The unreal makes another vain attempt to enter the realm of the real. Colloquial usage terms this as ‘building castles in the air’, as aptly put by one fervent critic of mine. Also aptly criticized is the distorted idea that ‘two in the bush’ is somehow inexplicably, and contrary to reason, superior to ‘one in the hand’.

My obsession with BMWs is quite widely known. Also widely known is the fact that I am the lowly software developer who has taken the place of better, more deserving programmers in the abysmal universe of IT laborers. I am cooking up fantasies of a cheap BMW in good condition with decent interior upholstery. The mind however is a peculiar entity, with almost a life of its own. Great men have struggled through life trying to control the mind. Very few succeeded. I, as always, fail miserably. I look into various car sale websites looking for that perfect car for the perfect price.

Every car is either too big or too small. No car gives enough fuel economy and no car gives enough performance. The concept of trade-off escapes the mind as it continues to dwell in the alternate universe where everything comes, and comes at no cost. As more and more hours pass, I begin to realize that this is not as easy as it looks. There are just too many variables. I am introduced to the idea of looking for car sale advertisements in laundry rooms. I scan a few of them, but find nothing. The perfect car (read BMW) continues to elude me.

One rainy evening a few days later, I receive the email that had the potential to change all of this. A friend is leaving to India and is on a selling spree. The 2005-made car, listed at seven and a half grand, is a prize by any standard. As I will realize later, the mind has already slipped into the corner. I see the 7.5 grand as going ‘all in’. My limit is 5.5 grand. It raises the alarm in my head.. Around me, good fellows suggest that it is just two grand more and it is worth every penny. But the mind blocks out all reasoning. I continue to look at the cost price with hate in my eyes. More good fellows extend persuasive encouragement to accept this benediction. The mind blocks out all reasoning. I recede to the delusive fulfillment of the little corner.

That Tuesday comes as a surprise and some solace. The office is giving out chocolate cookies from 2 to 3 PM. I wait expectantly for 2 o'clock. The usual afternoon is torpid. Tuesday afternoon turns electric. I open the door and step into the hallway. The luscious smell of fresh chocolate sweeps me off my feet. I suck in deep breaths of the delicious flavor until I can feel it in every cell. And my eyes fall upon The Fountain. It is a small staged recirculation unit, a flat rounded plate at the top and a larger cup right below it. The thick liquid makes its way up to the top of the plate and ambles quietly over the edge, descending into the cup below with a unique unparalleled radiance. The cup fills up and the liquid lazily spills over to the base, only to make its way up again. My eyes feast on this spectacular event. Pure, unadulterated golden brown Chocolate. Time stops. The mind is, for once, free. I feel bliss. The distinction between the real and the unreal becomes irrelevant. I am happy.

The idea of seven grand continues to run amok in my head. The mind, as I said, is a peculiar entity. When persisted with, enough, an untouchable idea loses resistance and ultimately finds acceptance. My mind is no exception. Two days and several hours later, seven grand is not preposterous anymore. I make peace. Peace leads to a frantic attempt to try and acquire the car. I am too late. I have been beaten by a buyer with an evident higher power of reasoning. The spectacle of the afternoon starts to fade away.

Mr. Opportunity knocked politely at the open front door. When all I had to do was nod, I reached out and slammed the door on his face, probably after stomping on his foot.

I am cheap.

I ramble on ...

The following takes place between 7:16 AM and 7:33 AM.

Wrapped in my Turkish towel, I step out of the shower after a warm lazy bath. Instantly, I realize I am in for trouble. Its 7:16 on the clock and the morning New Jersey Transit bus is just 15 odd minutes away.

I begin to dress with a growing sense of panic. I look at the watch every 30 seconds, trying to time every move and back calculate the time I have left. I seem to be quite fast. So I skip a few 30-second-time-checks in an attempt to eliminate the precious seconds wasted in looking at the watch. It turns out that I am not as fast as I think. Now as I finish buttoning my shirt, a full 7 minutes have passed. I panic. I lift the top of the Samsonite hand bag and reach for the first trouser I can find. I yank it out and put one leg through.

The phone rings. I have to take this call. The meeting is one hour away and I have no clue what we have done in the past 24 hours. I have to take this call. I struggle with the other leg, thrusting it through the trouser. The wet foot finds the end of the trouser and sticks on. I push harder but the foot is stubborn. I reach down and wrench the end from my foot and continue. I realize another minute is up in my struggle to look decent. I lunge for the phone and push the talk button. No answer. Apparently, they hang up as I pick up. "Hello." "Hello!" "Hellooooo!!!" Hello turns into "O-Hell!!!"

I return the call as I reach for the belt. Belts serve no purpose other than to satisfy popular perception of complete attire. The phone is wedged between my ear and my shoulder, as I force the belt through each flap. I pause with the belt to dial the extension, then wedge the handset back in its place, between my ear and my shoulder. It starts to slip. I press harder with my shoulder. My ear lobe starts to ache. But I cannot stop lest I risk missing my ride. So I continue to push the belt and the phone. The female moronic voice breaks at the other end of the line yet again. "The person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep." Beep! The cell phone begins to ring. Here I am, pushing leather through trouser flaps with the wrong phone to my ear and my caller waiting on the other line. I finish buckling the belt and the cell replaces the handset between my ear and shoulder.

I shut the laptop down and wrap the power cord as I continue on the phone. I take another look at the watch. 11 minutes and 30 seconds have passed. I am not sure how much time I have. I put the laptop and the cord in the bag and race back inside to get my jacket and cap. The phone continues to distract me, slowing me down, wasting invaluable seconds. I lose track of time for a moment, sitting down at the steps wearing my shoes and conversing at the same time. Eventually I snap out of it and start down the stairs and out toward the bus stop.

I realize that I have no idea when exactly the bus arrives. I continue walking realizing that I might not make it in time. I curse my tardiness. My mind replays the last 10 minutes and I regret wasting minutes I could have saved. I half expect the bus to go by me any minute. Every step forward adds a little more hope. It also adds a growing sense of apprehension that it might all be in vain if I missed my ride by a whisker. And of course, there is this whole other question of low self confidence and low self esteem combined with paralyzing fear. For now comes the act of paying the bus fare.

I need $2.15/-. As I near the bus stand, I pull the wallet out, only to find that I have run out of 1 dollar bills. I frantically reach for the bag and dig out whatever change I have. Murphy's law applies. All I can find are nickels and dimes. I continue excavation, examining every find for signs of a quarter. The first one comes up with the fourth dig. Two more come shortly, and then two more until I find all the money I need. And more. My hands are cold by now. I have no gloves on. I can barely hold the coins together. I am wary of attempting to return the nickels and retain the quarters in my hand, for I have no control over my fingers. I risk losing all the coins in the attempt. So I continue to hold on to them as I work out the logistics of returning the nickels to the bag. I can see the bus approaching.

A wave of elation sweeps over me. After all, I have not missed the bus. But there is the other problem. The fare. I grapple with the coins as they switch from one hand to the other. Eventually, I have all I need safely in one hand, while I return the remaining coins to the bag. The bus pulls up and two others board the bus with me. I am the last. By this time, my hands are totally numb. Motor signals from the brain do not translate to equivalent motion of fingers. I cling on to the coins for dear life. What if they spilled out of my hand? I will have to scout for every coin and there is no way I will be able to dig up more of them. I reach the ticketing machine and start inserting the coins one by one. The driver pulls out with a jerk and I drop three of the quarters. They are strewn all over the steps. As I bend down to collect them, I hear the driver's Spanish complaints. I can hear more voices from the back of the bus, and they are quite delighted with the incident.

The idea of public humiliation is remarkably similar across cultures that are otherwise widely differing. The power of collective persona is overwhelming. It corners you into believing that the concept of grace and ineptitude is uniform across the pack of preying humans. Every move thereon is closely watched, like vultures closing in on death. As new ones board, you feel a little better, now that there is someone who is not bothered by your presence, yet. Eventually, it all wears out. The stares stop and you are left to yourself, not because they reached in and found that little spark of compassion, but because they have lost all interest in what does not have life anymore.

I fight off the rising panic as more individuals chime in. I reach for the machine again and insert the three quarters. Slowly, I make my way to the back of the bus, bracing for sudden brakes and turns. I take my seat at the very end of the bus. As I walk by, I hear more glee behind my back. The language makes it impossible to know what fuels their imagination. The unknown makes it even more painful: like taking a slap with your eyes closed. You never know when it's coming, or if it's coming at all.

I can feel the dozen eyes looking on at me curiously. They have nothing much to do on that bus. Everything inside demands attention. It a mixture of distant, impersonal interest, mild amusement and pity. The inconsequential being that is the object of derisive exaggeration is a wondrous sight. The human psyche by its nature enjoys the debasement of another. It satisfies, like no other, the urge to get back at all the mortification. It enjoys watching because it symbolizes a victory of sorts: the soul's payback for what is thrust upon it.

I take what is thrust upon me.

7:33.

Attention reader. Garbage follows. Exit when unbearable.

I boarded the train to New York at 5:35 PM. It was a Wednesday and Wednesdays are those long, drawn out days when 8 hours feel like 16. As I made my way through the cars looking for a good place to sit, I noticed the train ticket master pass me by, swearing at some poor bloke who had apparently boarded the wrong train. For no reason, I felt glad I was not in his place ( I guess its natural to the chicken-hearted).

I found a car with two and three seats on either side of the aisle. I took one on the side with two and waited impatiently for the ticket master to check my tickets so I could get some sleep, quite exhausted as I was. It was a good hour and fifteen minutes to New York and I was determined to put every minute to good use. I looked back and forth the aisle a dozen or so times before resigning to the fact that this man was not coming by any time soon. I sat there looking at the moving objects on the other side of the window. Its amazing how something as dull as a tree can hold your attention as it passes you by. At long last, he came and checked my ticket. I surrendered the credit-card-sized-paper and settled in for some sleep. Outside, the moving objects started to blur and I drifted into darkness.

I heard a knock nearby and awoke with a start. I looked around to find the ticket master looking on with curiosity that bordered on irritation. "New York Penn Station", he said rather tersely. I got up in a hurry and followed him to the exit. He unlocked the door for me. I stepped out of the car groggily, apologizing to him for the trouble. He didn't seem to care; just happy that I was finally out of the train. It makes me wonder about how long he must have been trying.

I hurried out to toward the subway trains in hope of getting to Wall Street as quickly as possible. I couldn't however, figure out which train I was supposed to be on. To save time, I made my way back to the station exit and out onto the road. I found a cab which took me to Wall Street in about fifteen minutes. It was another ten minutes to walk before I met up with my friends. I showed them around downtown Brooklyn a little bit. Then it was time to go back to Manhatten for them to see Times Square and the Empire State Building from the outside. After dinner, it was time to say good bye and I came back to New York Penn Station for my train back home. As I checked the train timings, I noticed that the next train was at 9:45. I had five minutes to buy a ticket and hurry down to the train. I got into line pushing past a couple, and apologizing. They didn't seem to care either; just too preoccupied with themselves. I suppose I could give up apologizing and live to talk about it. I bought the ticket and ran down the steps to my Dover train.

This Dover train is a finely furnished double decker with good interiors and upholstery. Shortly I found a seat beside a China man, and sat down. I kept looking around for people getting out of the train so that I could have a place with both the seats for myself. The guy on the other side of the aisle got up. I bolted across the aisle and took my place by the window, stretching my legs so that they went across the seat beside me. My feet fell just short of jutting out of the aisle. I prepared for another good spell of sleep.

I woke up to an announcement on the intercomm announcing that it was the last stop and requesting everybody to get out. The train had come to a halt. I climbed the small flight of stairs from the lower deck and went for the exit. Locked. So was the door on the other side. Suddenly the train started moving to my right. It was customary for the ticket masters to lock doors on the compartments at the rear and front so that all passengers could exit from a single car. With this 'insight' into the working of the Dover Railway Dept., I started toward what I thought was the back of the train, which was to the left, opposite to the direction the train was moving in. I had no idea whether it was left or right when we started. As I crossed the second car, I found two Spaniards and a couple, waiting at one of the doors. I decided this was it and I waited too.

The train came to a halt. Outside, on either side were continuous structures that didn't seem like platforms. Still quite in sleep, it didn't make any sense. I wrestled with the identity of this new entity until the truth suddenly came to me. We were in the yard and these structures were trains!

Apparently the other four people had known all along that were had been to the station and back. It didn't seem to bother them that we were supposed to have gotten off when it had stopped. Maybe they were waiting for Spiderman to come and rescue them from the 'villainous Ticket Master' who had pulled out of the station without letting them off. I decided they had had brain surgery and the surgeon had forgotten to put the brain back in. All doors around us were locked and the only way out was to press the Emergency button which would get the ticket master to come and open the doors. I suggested that we press the button so that he knew we were still in the train. They hesitated. I was sure the Emergency button was made for passengers in distress. Either my co-passengers didn't think so, or they didn't think they were in distress, or they didn't think at all.

At length, I pressed and spoke into the intercomm. The annoyance in the voice on the other end was quite apparent. He hung up and we took it that he was headed our way. I sat on the stairs and waited. After another ten minutes, we finally spotted the ticket master making his way through the car toward us. At the foot of the stairs on the lower deck, he looked up.

I stared at his face in disbelief. He stared back at mine. It was the same ticket master who had woken me up at New York Penn Station just a few hours back. He snapped out of it before I did and started up with stairs shaking his head. I gave way to him as he reached our level. He turned to me with a look of utter disdain and anger. Clearly I had pushed him over the edge. His eyes said it all. "What is it with you, man?! Do you ever get off the train?!!" I didn't say anything. He turned toward all of us and spat out a short string of expletives. The Spaniards retorted in vain, about some other ticket master telling them to wait there. He was not going to have any of it. More expletives followed. Finally he opened the door and led us out of the tracks onto the road.

I figured this was his bad day, what with having the same passenger sleeping on, on his train, at every last stop. It could as well have been mine, for having the same ticket master letting me off the train, after having overslept. As I started walking up the hill toward home, I felt a little droplet of water land on my arm. Slowly more followed. It was raining.

I decided that the bad day was not the ticket master's, after all. It was mine.

Before you begin reading, there are a few facts that you might want to get privy with:

- We cook two times in a month, at the most.
- Any spill in the kitchen is taken care of, 48-72 hours after the incident, at the least.
- The door on the ground floor never locks, unless we drag it along on the way out.
- The probability of a random cordless handset dying out, on a random hour of a random day of a random year, is quite honestly, very very very low.


Saturday evening. A time of endless bliss and joy, for Sunday is next. For the near sighted, like me, the fact that the Monday comes right after, is invariably lost in the bliss of the approaching Sunday. We loiter around the house, on the seventh heaven, planning for the next dinner. Eating out is no more a fancy. It is a drawn out procedure that goes thus:

- deciding on an eatery (choosing between a hotel that provides crap and a hotel that provides crap - tough choice)
- driving to the eatery (the SUV takes more gas than a camel could take water; might exchange the Suzuki for a camel)
- ordering (meekly browsing the menu for non-existent vegetables)
- waiting in hunger (quite like standing in line, in a public toilet, in India; you realize you are headed toward piles of smelly crap, but you gotta go anyway.)
- eating (a euphemism for forcing junk down the esophagus due to growing-out-of-proportion hunger)
- paying the bill (that is quite like a blood donation camp for the Vampire needy)
- driving back (camel starts sounding like a good option. And maybe it could live on coke. Its cheaper than water.)

We decide to cook. Menu turns out to be vaangi bhaat masala and potato curry. Roommate is on one side of the stove cooking brinjal. I stand beside him cooking potato. The prospect of a wonderful vaangi bhaat with alu curry is mouth watering. We relish the growing smell of the masala, which lingers on, in all of our first floor apartment. Ah! Ecstasy. I pick up the box of chilli powder and place it to my left. I pick up the spoon and shower glorious chilli powder gently over the potato, stirring all the while. Ah! The smell! As I pull my hand back to stir again, I knock the box over the edge.

The floor mat is showered with glorious chilli powder too; about 200 gms. We realize that we are standing on the floor mat. Our feet could get smeared with chilli powder. Extrapolating this possibility, we see ourselves walking around the house with chilli powder on our feet, spreading it around the house and onto our comforter on the floor. Further extrapolation reveals us waking up the next morning with chilli powder in our eyes, disabling eyesight temporarily. Having 'seen the dark future' using extrapolation, we resort to the unthinkable.

We clean. I leave the gas on sim. He leaves the gas on. I pick one end of the floor mat and force all the powder to the center. He picks up the other end. We walk out of the kitchen toward the main door. He is wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I am wearing just shorts, no shirt, no undershirt. We make our way down the steps and open the door on the ground floor. He walks out first, I follow. He leaves the mat for me to dust. I go down the couple or so steps and dust the thing. The mat has probably never been dusted since its inception. So I make sure its a pretty good dusting job. I turn around and find my roommate standing facing me, looking on rather strangely. I walk up to him and wait for him to open the door. He does not react. I insist. He moves away.

The door on the ground floor locks itself today. I have nothing on me. No key, no cell phone, no shirt. He has the shirt, no key, no cell phone. He suggests we sit outside and wait for roommate no. 2 to return. I realize the stoves are on. We panic. We look around for any kind of help, any kind of help. A neighbour provides her cordless phone. In panic, there are just a few numbers we can recall. We call. By good fortune, we reach whoever we are trying to call. By bad fortune, the cordless handset is screaming for power. Call gets dropped. Roommate runs down one block to an acquaintance for making the call to Roommate No. 2.

7 PM on one of the fifty odd Saturday evenings of the year 2008, one of the hundred odd cordless handsets in existence around us, is dying out in our hands. I stare in disbelief. We receive the call back from the one we called. We explain the problem in a hurry. He calls up Roommate No. 2. I call Roommate and tell him that Roommate No. 2 has been informed and is on the way. Roommate hurries back. We wait on the steps longingly for Roommate No. 2. Unnoticeable at first, stronger later, we smell the burning vaangi. With each breath, we see the vaangi 'passing away'. We sit outside hopelessly, he with the t-shirt, I with none. I wonder about the nausea I cause, to all that see me. I thank the lord for my shorts.

Roommate No. 2 arrives at length. We rush into the house in the hope of salvaging whatever is left of the vaangi and the alu. I open the alu. Delightfully, it is not burnt. Gas on sim did the trick. We try scraping off top layers of the vaangi, going down as far as we think we can without hitting carbon. We hit carbon. We stop scraping and decide that was it. We finally sit down, quite spent. The house is foggy.

We think: it cannot have been us; it has got to be fate.

The fire alarm goes off.